learning the Neapolitan mindset from my taxi driver

keep going

I am still in the thick of my transition season. At the beginning, it was about packing up and saying goodbye to San Diego. Four months later, it is about creating roots in Napoli.

The heat was something I wasn’t prepared for. I grew up in place with very hot and sticky summers. In my view, the heat added a stifling suffocation to landing in an intoxicatingly overstimulating environment. The yelling, the sound of motos ripping through the city, the car alarms, all while navigating through an oppressive, baking city. Daily life becomes a slog; mid-day naps become a necessity, and lethargy lurks at every corner.

This is in complete opposition to the disposition of Napoletanos. Napoletanos are very strong. They are strong willed, strong minded, and passionate people. I am learning here that I too, have to be strong, which is sometimes overwhelming to my sensitive nature. Sometimes I feel as if I was an alien plucked from the sky.

When I came back to Naples after visiting my family in the US, I left the airport doors and was welcomed by a blustering heat wave. My sunglasses fogged up as I got into a taxi in Naples and rested my head against the back seat, questioning why I was leaving my family and moving to place where I have no strong connections yet. My driver could intuit that I was sad. At first, he started being very polite, asking me the route I’d like to go back home. Right away, I knew something was up, because no taxi driver in Naples had ever asked me my preferred route. Then, as we talked more and he learned my story, he started proselytizing to me, telling me what I didn’t know was a commonly known Neapolotan saying: “Chi viene a Napoli piange due volte: quando arriva e quando parte.” Those who come to Napoli cry two times: when you arrive and when you leave. You cry when you arrive because you wonder what compelled you to visit this chaos, you cry when you leave because you can’t part from it.

From there, the conversation drifted from small talk to pep talk. He was the coach and I was the athlete headed to my first Olympic game. As he was whipping around the roads of Napoli, the laundry flapping from the balconies of the apartments alongside the tangenziale, he said, “ogni giorno a Napoli e un esame”. Every day in Naples is a test. He told me I need to adapt the “filosophia napoletano”. The faster I adopted, the quicker I’d assimilate. I asked him what, exactly, was the Naples philosophy? He said, “la pazienza” and “la tolleranza”. Patience and tolerance. In other words, I needed to keep going. Line 3 hours long at the post office? Bring a book. Metro line closed with unknown date of reopen? Find another route home. By the time we pulled up to my apartment, I had a strong sense of companionship with this man. I said thank you for the ride, but I didn’t find words to thank him for his kindness. The best part of living in Napoli is that when your patience and tolerance are being tested, you will always find a treasure trove of kindness if you you know where to look for it.

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What I’m reading:

• I have been non-stop thinking about an article that completely encapsulates my distaste for the icky parts of wellness culture. It’s called, “How Holistic New Age Wellness Movements Promote AND Mask Eating Disorders”.

• After last week’s post on “slow travel” - my interest was piqued by this article about the American pursuit of the “perfect instagrammable vacation”. The linked video of the American saying instagrammers posting pictures of the Amalfi should be “in jail” hit. I haven’t even gone to the coastal towns of the Amalfi yet for this reason, and I live an hour away!

• This essay about sobriety. I am a sober curious person and have done several sober stints in the past year. I was moved by this line, “I have never been this vulnerable, this sensate — all the things I couldn’t allow myself to be for so long. I feel more human than ever. And I’m grateful.”